# Credits, prices and top-ups

Source: https://auditae.app/docs/credits

What each AuditAE action costs, how to top up (in the app, in AEBOT chat or from an agent), how auto-refill works, and what happens when credit runs out.

AuditAE is fully pay-per-use. There's no subscription, no minimum monthly spend, and credits never expire. New accounts get **$5 of free credit**, no card required.

## What costs money

- **Audit checks:** priced by engine per prompt × engine cell — Perplexity 5¢, ChatGPT 7¢, Google AI Overviews 9¢, Gemini 12¢. Cache hits bill at full price.
- **Keyword rank checks:** $0.05 each — a live SERP read with AI Overview citation + 12-month volume trend (Traffic → Keywords and `track_keyword` / `refresh_keyword_rank`). One-time history backfill is $0.25 (charged only if past data exists).
- **DataForSEO research pulls:** keyword research at **$0.25** and content gap at **$0.25**; **open-web mentions** (Content Analysis) at **$0.25**; **AI citations** (LLM-mentions corpus) at **$0.75**. Each saves a report you keep. Platform detection and backlink authority on the Technical tab are free.
- **Playbook rows:** auto-generated for two flows — **mentioned-only** (your brand was named but a competitor's URL got the citation) and **pure-loss** (your brand wasn't mentioned at all). Each row carries a specific fix and the prompt to re-run after you ship it. Priced dynamically via Sonnet at the 10× tier — measured average **~10¢ per row**, up to ~20¢ for long answers. A 10-check audit where no answer cites you lands around **$1.45** for its playbook, rollup included.
- **Audit-level rollup:** on top of the per-prompt rows, AuditAE clusters the playbook into 1–3 "do this first" actions per audit (across both loss types). One Sonnet call at the 10× tier — measured average **~45¢** per audit.
- **AEBOT turns:** token-based (input + output) × Anthropic list price × the tier markup for the underlying model (Haiku 3× / Sonnet 10× / Opus 10×), rounded up to 1¢ minimum. AEBOT runs on Opus 5.5 (specialist delegations bill at Sonnet rates). Measured over 15 customer replies in the 30 days to 2026-10-01: median about $1.07, 90th percentile about $2.56, the largest $3.12. A saved report adds 25¢. Questions in the free Documentation mode cost nothing.
- **Fix plans** (`get_fix_plan`): $0.50 per plan; the same request within 24 hours is free. See [Apply a fix plan](https://auditae.app/docs/fix-plan).
- **Competitor prompt mining** (`mine_competitor_prompts`): 5¢.
- **Site crawls:** $0.01 per page (~$0.25 for a typical 25-page site). The homepage technical audit is free.
- **WordPress writes:** 5¢ per standard write, billed per write; `wp_design_page` is 25¢. Reads are free. See [WordPress permissions](https://auditae.app/docs/wordpress-permissions).
- **Scheduled audits:** each run bills its checks, its fix plan and a 25¢ saved report, only when it runs.

The playbook and top fixes on your first audit aren't charged — only the engine checks use credit.

Every charge is billed per use and debited from your balance the moment it posts, so the balance pill in the top bar is always current. The first row at the bottom of the Billing page's activity feed is your **$5 free signup credit** — that's where the starting balance came from.

## Topping up

1. Go to [Billing](https://auditae.app/dashboard/billing).
2. Pick an amount ($5–$1,000 per top-up; a $10 first top-up is suggested if you haven't paid before).
3. Click **Add credit**. Stripe Checkout opens inline.
4. Pay. Credit is added as soon as Stripe confirms the payment, usually before the page reloads.

Payments are in USD. When your balance drops below $3, the Overview shows a top-up card.

### Top up from the AEBOT chat

AEBOT needs $1.50 of credit to start a reply (a reply is usually about $1–2). If you're short, the chat shows the top-up right in the conversation. Pay there and AEBOT picks up where it stopped: it sends the message it was holding, or carries on with the reply that ran out of credit. Fix buttons on your audits read **Add credit, then ask AEBOT** when your balance is too low, and take you through the same top-up.

## Auto-refill

Auto-refill is offered after your first purchase. On [Billing](https://auditae.app/dashboard/billing), click **Turn on auto-refill** and save a card. Then set:

- **Refill amount:** how much to add each time.
- **When below:** the balance that triggers a refill.
- **Monthly cap:** the most auto-refill may charge in a month.

When your balance drops below the threshold, we charge the saved card for the refill amount and email a Stripe receipt. Auto-refill pauses when it reaches the monthly cap (until next month, or until you raise the cap), when a charge is declined, or when a payment is disputed; the Billing page says which and how to switch it back on.

## Top-ups for agents

Agents working for you can check your balance and add credit. Over MCP: `get_balance`, `create_top_up_link` (returns a Stripe Checkout link for you to pay) and `pay_with_shared_payment_token` (charges a Stripe shared payment token you approved in your wallet, such as Link; credit lands immediately). Over REST: `GET /api/v1/billing` and `POST /api/v1/billing/top-up` with `{ "amount_usd": 20 }`, or add `"shared_payment_token": "spt_…"` to pay directly. Amounts run from $5 to $1,000. See [Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor](https://auditae.app/docs/mcp) and [REST API and API keys](https://auditae.app/docs/api).

## When credit runs out

- **REST API:** a paid call your balance can't cover returns HTTP 402 with a `top_up` object holding the exact call to make (a crawl too big for your balance returns the same shape, with the error `Insufficient credits for that page count.` and the crawl's worst-case cost as the amount required):

```json
{
  "error": "Insufficient credits",
  "balance_cents": 0,
  "required_cents": 5,
  "top_up": {
    "method": "POST",
    "url": "https://auditae.app/api/v1/billing/top-up",
    "body": {
      "amount_usd": 5
    },
    "min_usd": 5,
    "max_usd": 1000,
    "note": "Returns a Stripe Checkout URL. Give it to the account owner to pay; credit lands within seconds."
  },
  "top_up_url": "https://auditae.app/dashboard/billing"
}
```

- **Audits over the API or MCP:** API + MCP calls run through the same metered audit pipeline as the dashboard: 5–12¢ per check depending on the engine (Perplexity 5¢, ChatGPT 7¢, Google AI Overviews 9¢, Gemini 12¢), debited from your credit balance. When the balance hits zero, in-flight audits return `partial: true` with the cells that did run.
- **AEBOT:** if your balance is below $1.50 when a turn starts, AEBOT refuses the request rather than running up debt. Until your first purchase, a reply also stops when your balance reaches $0, so you never start with a debt. Top up to unlock again.

## Limits & guardrails

- The free check (homepage and `/ai-brand-monitor`) is limited to 1 run per IP per 24 hours and 50 free checks a day site-wide.
- Each engine call has a 30–60 second limit; cells that time out are marked failed and not billed.
- AEBOT turns require ≥ $1.50 balance before starting (defensive floor). Until your first purchase, a reply also stops when your balance reaches $0.
- Credits never expire and there's no refund clock.

## Teams, bulk usage and invoicing

**Bulk usage / fixed monthly spend.** There is no seat plan and no volume discount — checks cost the same at any scale, and team seats are free at every level (invite your team; everyone spends from one balance). Teams are capped at 5 members by default — email support@auditae.app to raise it, still free. For a subscription-style setup, turn on auto-refill on [Billing](https://auditae.app/dashboard/billing), set the refill amount to your monthly budget (up to $1,000) and the monthly cap to match: one card charge and one Stripe receipt a month. Above $500/month, email [support@auditae.app](mailto:support@auditae.app?subject=AuditAE%20enterprise%20invoicing) for invoicing instead of card charges and a response-time SLA.

All public prices: [Pricing](https://auditae.app/pricing).